Seeking that which is gone
by bloodymary2
Summary: A major battle, a lost hero, a strangely different Lois Lane. And the story of a journey back home [Post-Salvation, CLOIS]
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Don't own Smallville, Superman or any other variation of the theme. Don't sue.

**A/C:** On a posting spree here. Don't know why I held back so long with all these stories brewing in my computer.

_Post-Salvation_, though altered ending to the episode, which will be explained as we go. Clois and happy ending, of course. Lot's already written, much to write still. Varying chapter sizes.

Review, point out mistakes, comment!

And enjoy, of course. =D

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**SEEKING THAT WHICH IS... GONE**

by bloodymary2

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The air was eerily still and silent now.

Snow and ice, crystals and light. The whiteness of the place was heavenly and somewhat peaceful, except for the large red stain marring the floor of the Fortress. That foreign color, the only sign of the battle which had occurred weeks before. Its only witness, too.

Everyone was gone, now.

Chloe Sullivan felt small as she surveyed the abandoned ice fortress; smaller and infinitely more insignificant than she had ever felt when walking within its chilled crystal made walls. Hugging her thick parka closer to her trembling body, she shifted and looked around. Far from being dead, as she had seen the kryptonian refuge become in the past, there was almost something like expectation lingering in the air. Like a coiled snake ready to strike.

_Small laugh._

Or maybe she was simply seeing what she wanted to see. The blonde didn't know why she continued to come here. Lois was gone, taken by Zod as bait and not seen since. Clark was gone, too, banished by his own hands with all the other kandorians. He was trapped in a place beyond her reach.

Alone.

That's how she felt.

_Sob._

Strong arms circled her from behind, succeeding in warming her far more efficiently than any coat. Chloe leaned backwards, relieved to have someone to lean to, when her own weight had proven to be too much to bear alone.

"I keep expecting it to change, you know?" her voice cracked.

"I know." Oliver Queen rested his chin on her head, allowing his eyes to sweep the frozen blood on the floor. He wondered whose blood it was - there was far too much of it - and found himself glad he didn't know.

Shudder.

"I know. It's hard to believe it's over. Hard to believe they're not going to suddenly come back, like all the times before. You knew it was coming, but, still..." He kissed her golden curls. "seems wrong somehow."

"Yeah."

And like the fortress, they fell into silence and stillness, until the cold became unbearable, despite their heavy clothing. Oliver sighed, then, and pulled back.

"Let's go, Chloe. There's nothing we can do here." She allowed herself to be pulled to the crystal panel and watched as her boyfriend placed the metal disk in the semi hidden slot. Light engulfed them and soon the ice turned into brown, the darker hues of the Kawatche cave coming into view.

A single tear escaped from the corner of Chloe's pale cheek and she wondered how long it would take to heal her broken heart. Hadn't she been here last year, broken and alone? No. Though similarities couldn't be denied, it was different. It was far more final.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly.

How many times would she be forced to say goodbye to the ones she loved?

A warm hand closed around hers and Chloe grasped it, her lifeline. No matter how much pain she was being forced to endure, the world kept on spinning and Watchtower was still needed. Better, this time. She would make sure of it.

For Jimmy, for giving her the perfect gift.

For the heroes left behind who would have to shoulder the burden of the whole planet's safety.

For Lois, who didn't even know.

And for Clark, who had made the biggest sacrifice of them all.

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Thoughts?


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

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The still air stirred.

Snowflakes littering the floor were taken from their rest and lifted up to dance in none patterned circles by the stirring wind. The fortress was still quiet, but the silence was no longer deafening. Light, which had been dim for so long, brightened and glistened on the tall crystal columns; life was returning to the place.

One of the columns, a little out of place amid the balanced structure, shined brighter than the rest. And there, within the hard surface, the new illumination revealed a bare arm with red scratches marring its skin. Ice covering this particular crystal in a thick layer slowly melted, revealing the rest of the body enclosed within.

A woman.

Eyes closed, her dark hair stood damp and disheveled. Her skin was pale and grayish, without life. Despite her stillness, her chest moved ever so slowly, up and down. It was barely perceptible. The light continued to grow steadily in intensity and the crystal grew more transparent. All the curves of the woman's bare body were visible. Then, in a flash, the bright light vanished, taking with it the case surrounding the woman's body. Instead of falling to the floor, as one would expect when dealing with gravity, she was floated down, until she lay on snowflakes and ice.

Deeply, her chest rose and fell a handful of times, marking a subtle difference to her state of consciousness. And then her pale eyelids fluttered, revealing brownish green orbs and dilated pupils. The whiteness of her surroundings was blinding and she closed her eyes again, a groan escaping her lips. For a moment, she remained as she lay, motionless and confused.

_Was she in a hospital?_

There were flashes of blacks and whites and memories of a Fortress, of an army and red. Something painful and red. She couldn't recall what happened, couldn't piece these disjointed images together to form a coherent whole. The pain had been real, though, she could still feel it in her ribs.

Lois Lane sighed, a hand coming up to cover the place where the pain irradiated from.

Her fingers found no reason for it, though, and her eyes opened again to check. Nothing, but pale and smooth skin. This strange occurrence took second place when she finally took notice of her complete lack of clothing.

Lois wasn't sure she wanted to know how that had happened. She couldn't phantom a plausible scenario which explained her ending up naked on the floor of this icy place. Nothing she would have wanted to remember, she was sure.

For a couple of milliseconds, she tensed, eyes nervously scanning her surroundings for prying eyes.

No one was there, though.

Her mind was still fuzzy from unconsciousness and again, she was distracted, this time by Clark's face. Distorted, in pain. Lois gasped. She remembered! She remembered pain and Clark's arms around her and his cry. Clark had cried and screamed. He had been holding the strange disk - the Book of Rao! - and had said something.

_What were the words he whispered to her?_

Then, there had been silence and darkness.

Until now.

_Clark._

Her Smallville, loyal and caring, and the Blur, protector of Metropolis. She had been right, after all. Knowing her instincts were correct, however, didn't matter, when Clark was nowhere to be found. He wouldn't have left her behind if he could help it, she was sure. Dread and worry washed over her.

If he couldn't help it...

"Cl..." her voice was hoarse and her throat protested at her attempts at speaking. She swallowed and cleared her throat. "Clark?" Around her, nothing but white. No one answered her call.

No one.

Not Clark who had come to her rescue, when Zod had whisked her away. Not Zod and his army of black clad aliens intent on world domination. They had all disappeared, leaving no trace of their presence in their wake. Nothing that proved they had been there at all. There had been a golden light, she recalled. Could be it be related to everyone's vanishing acts?

And what did that mean for her, she wondered.

"C'mon, Smallville... where did you go?" Her voice cracked, tears threatening to overcome her once calm façade. Feeling alone and bare and exposed, Lois gingerly rose from the ice covered floor and hugged her arms around her naked chest.

And, as her gaze stood transfixed by the fluffy snow surrounding her uncovered feet, Lois frowned. Shouldn't she be shivering and be practically frozen like a popsicle? She knew that the Fortress was located somewhere way up north and she had certainly felt the cold seeping in through her clothes when Zod had unceremoniously dumped her there, after a frightening blur of colors and speed. Thinking of heat control within this strange place seemed so absurd.

Or was it?

She couldn't think of any other explanation, except...

"Am I dead?" None of the crystals around her responded and she hadn't really expected them to. It seemed easier, though, to speak out loud. Hearing her own voice, rather than the absolute silence, was comforting somehow. "Ghosts don't feel cold, right?" Lois wondered. It made sense, she couldn't deny it, but she simply didn't feel dead.

But did dead people feel dead?

The dark haired woman shook her head, trying to clear it from disturbing thoughts of decomposing corpses and being trapped in limbo for eternity alone. "Facts, Lane. We deal with facts!" Her muttered whisper echoed much too loudly around her and reinforced her loneliness.

She had to get out.

Lois could feel the sense of claustrophobic closing in on her.

She had to find a way out.

Moving swiftly, she searched for a way out of this silent fortress. A door, a window, a hole... anything would do! When she reached the opening, however, and the wind blew strongly against her naked body, Lois changed her mind about leaving so impulsively. Before her, nothing but white and snow and complete isolation. It sure didn't seem like a better option than staying in the fortress.

"Great. Just great. I'm somewhere in the North or maybe even South Pole with no means of reaching civilization." She squinted and turned this way and that way, willing for any sign of life to magically appear.

No such luck.

With feet dragging and face crestfallen, she reentered the ice fortress. Her memories were still a bit jumbled, but she remembered enough to know something wasn't quite right. Hugging her upper body tighter - an act born of insecurity more than any feeling of cold -, she stepped towards the strange, circular altar filled with dark circles, that stood in the center of the room. Zod and his minions had gathered around it, so it must have been important. Apprehensively, she raised a hand and touched one of the crystals.

It was smooth and chilled beneath her fingers. Relieved she had actually been able to touch it, she sighed. Ghosts were transparent, right? So she couldn't be one.

Her thoughts on spirits and their proper body densities were put aside, when she caught sight of the Book of Rao, sitting harmlessly in the center of the altar. This was the object that had started it all; this was the object Zod had almost tricked her into giving away. Had Clark brought it here? Lois bit her lower lips. Her first instinct was to retrieve it, of course. Doubts about the wisdom of that move made her hesitate, however.

Enough damage had been done by that piece of metal.

_But could this get any worse?_

They could, she was sure. Even if she couldn't think of anything worse than this right at that moment.

A rush of wind circled her, strong, and she almost fell forward, her feet feeling unbalanced. A small beam of light seemed to illuminate the shiny surface of the Book of Rao. It was beckoning her. Impulsively, she reached for it, closed her fingers around the object. Lois expected the ground to shake beneath her feet or for the columns around her to start crumbling.

Nothing.

So much for Indiana Jones movies.

"Huh... what now?"

As if in answer to her question, the strange wind returned. The force seemed to possess a will of its own, as it again circled her body and pushed her away from the crystal altar. It was now sending her in another direction. Curious, Lois glanced around and sure enough, a crystal wall stood, a few feet away, softly glowing.

Calling out to her, it seemed.

Common sense dictated that unseen forces controlling you never led to anything good. Lois was sure there were a hundred cautionary tales about how not good that was. Still, naked and trapped in a palace of ice, alone and confused, she couldn't really afford to ignore the glowing signs. Besides, Lois Lane had never been known for her common sense.

She had always been more of a head first kind of diver.

Slow but sure steps carried her in the direction the wind was pointing. When her hand touched the white light emanating from the smooth crystal wall, the structure slid away, revealing a hidden room behind it. The whole experience felt out of this world and she couldn't help a certain thrill from rising up her spine.

With only a brief glance over her shoulder, Lois entered the room. She anticipated the door slamming shut behind her and was almost surprised when it didn't. Too many movies, she pondered, again; life didn't follow the rules of a good scary movie.

She snorted.

Though, if life had ever come close to resembling a science fiction movie, this moment was it. It just couldn't get more bizarre than this. Shrugging at her amused thoughts, she explored the room. Surely, there had to be some clothes lying around. The room seemed more like a bedroom and was spacious and bare. The few furnishings - a bed and a sofa like chair - were white and clear, like everything else in this place. She pushed her hand against the mattress and found it to be surprisingly soft and accommodating.

The chair, too.

With a hand trailing in the smooth wall, she walked around the four walls, looking for another secret passageway. A closet! Her kingdom for a square of ratty fabric, Lois thought, smiling. Being naked as a jaybird - whatever that meant - was getting old. She found no clothes, though. And no hidden closet.

Sigh.

"Great... no clothes, no company and no way of getting home." Perhaps the strange, sheer-like sheet? "And no food!" She yelled accusingly at the ceiling, as if a superior force up there could hear her reproach. "You have the worst luck, Lois." She mutter to herself.

Lois turned to the bed, intent on pilfering the sheets there. Not two steps forward and her eyes fell upon a light blue dress, laid out upon the mattress. A frown was her first reaction. Had it been there all along? She doubted, sure she would have noticed it there the moment she entered the room.

Suspiciously, she swallowed the dry lump in her throat.

"Jorel?" No answer. "That's what Clark had shouted, right?" She wondered, rolling the strange sound around her tongue. Was it a name? An object? A being? A computer intelligence? "Jorel? Hello?"

She brought the dress to her and put it on, afraid the fabric would disappear like a mirage. Lois looked up again, at the high ceiling, already feeling better for having her body covered.

"Are you like a sentient being or something, like the TARDIS(1)? You know, like the TV show, bigger on the inside and all that?" The Fortress offered no answer and Lois felt silly for even attempting to communicate with what was basically a house. And, even if this place resembled the Doctor's ship in anyway, it probably lacked the cultural reference to understand her question.

"You're such a dork, Lane." She smoothed the dress around her hips; it fit perfectly and fell just below her knees. "And crazy, too".

She left the room through the door that still stood open and walked determinedly to the panel she had found the book of Rao in.

Time was running fast and she had to find out what had happened to everyone who had been in the Fortress with her.

Specially Clark.

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(1) Doctor Who is a BBC show. It is considered the longest running show in history. It deals with a man - an alien - who can time travel in a sentient machine that has taken the format of a Police Box (TARDIS). I recommend to one and all.

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Review! More over the weekend or early next week.


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